Using bfs with fzf

[mathomp4]

I'm a newbie to bfs and so am slowly learning how to use it. I've used fd a lot (it's replaced find for me in most cases), but I figure, hey, new-to-me tool!

So, one thing I thought I'd try is to maybe translate a couple FZF environment variables:

FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND=fd --type file --color=always --no-ignore-vcs
FZF_ALT_C_COMMAND=fd --type d . --color=never --no-ignore-vcs

to bfs speak.

So far I have:

FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND=bfs -type f -exclude -name .git
FZF_ALT_C_COMMAND=bfs -type d -exclude -name .git

which seems to work, so yay! But then I run man bfs and...hooboy. 😄

I'm wondering if there are any of those other things in there I should look at and play with. Search strategy? Optimization?

[tavianator]

I have

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS='-x --ansi'
export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="bfs -color -mindepth 1 -nohidden -printf '%P\n' 2>/dev/null"
export FZF_ALT_C_COMMAND="bfs -color -mindepth 1 -nohidden -type d -printf '%P\n' 2>/dev/null"

A breakdown:

• -color
  • Same as fd's --color=always, needs fzf --ansi
• -mindepth 1
  • Skips the current directory, .
• -nohidden
  • Excludes hidden files/directories (same as -exclude -hidden)
• -printf '%P\n'
  • Prints the path without the leading ./
• 2>/dev/null
  • Hide errors

I also have

_fzf_compgen_path() {
    bfs -H "$1" -color -exclude \( -depth +0 -hidden \) 2>/dev/null
}

_fzf_compgen_dir() {
    bfs -H "$1" -color -exclude \( -depth +0 -hidden \) -type d 2>/dev/null
}

• -H
  • Follow symlinks in root paths (only), in case I do link/**<TAB>
• -exclude \( -depth +0 -hidden \)
  • Excludes hidden files unless they are root paths, in case I do .git/**<TAB>

[cstrahan]

Thanks @tavianator for bfs and sharing your configs!

I often want to hack on various dotfiles, so rather than using -nohidden I prefer to just exclude version control directories with -exclude ( -name .git -or -name .hg ).

So e.g. instead of this:

export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="bfs -color -mindepth 1 -nohidden -printf '%P\n' 2>/dev/null"

I'd have:

export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="bfs -color -mindepth 1 -exclude \\( -name .git -or -name .hg \\) -printf '%P\n' 2>/dev/null"

Just figured I'd share 😄.